Water conflict is a term describing a conflict between countries, states, or groups over an access to
water resources.
[1][2][3] The
United Nations recognizes that water disputes result from opposing interests of water users, public or private.
[4]
A wide range of water conflicts appear throughout history, though rarely are traditional wars waged over water alone.
[5]
Instead, water has historically been a source of tension and a factor
in conflicts that start for other reasons. However, water conflicts
arise for several reasons, including territorial disputes, a fight for
resources, and strategic advantage.
[6]
These conflicts occur over both
freshwater and
saltwater,
and between international boundaries. However, conflicts occur mostly
over freshwater; because freshwater resources are necessary, yet
limited, they are the center of water disputes arising out of need for
potable water.
[7] As freshwater is a vital, yet unevenly distributed natural resource, its availability often impacts the
living and economic conditions of a country or region. The lack of cost-effective
water desalination techniques in areas like the Middle East,
[8] among other elements of
water crises
can put severe pressures on all water users, whether corporate,
government, or individual, leading to tension, and possibly aggression.
[9] Recent humanitarian catastrophes, such as the
Rwandan Genocide or the
war in Sudanese Darfur, have been linked back to water conflicts.
[1]
Causes
"Scarcity and misuse of fresh water pose a serious and growing threat
to sustainable development and protection of the environment. Human
health and welfare, food security, industrial development and the
ecosystem on which they depend, are all at risk, unless water and land
resources are managed more effectively in the present decade and beyond
that they have been in the past"
[10].
Water is a vital element for human life, and any human activity relates
somehow to water. Unfortunately, it is not a renewable resource and in
the future there will be lot of water problems. Moreover, some people
state that future wars will be fought for water.
Water conflicts occur because the demand for water resources and
potable water extend far beyond the amount of water actually available. Elements of a
water crisis
may put pressures on affected parties to obtain more of a shared water
resource, causing diplomatic tension or outright conflict.
1.1 billion people are without adequate
drinking water; the potential for water disputes is correspondingly large. Besides life, water is necessary for proper
sanitation
, commercial services, and the production of commercial goods. Thus
numerous types of parties can become implicated in a water dispute. For
example, corporate entities may pollute water resources shared by a
community, or governments may argue over who gets access to a
river used as an international or inter-state boundary.
The broad spectrum of water disputes makes them difficult to address.
Locale, local and international law, commercial interests,
environmental concerns, and human rights questions make water disputes
complicated to solve – combined with the sheer number of potential
parties, a single dispute can leave a large list of demands to be met by
courts and lawmakers.
Economic and trade issues
Water’s viability as a commercial resource, which includes fishing,
agriculture, manufacturing, recreation and tourism, among other
possibilities, can create dispute even when access to potable water is
not necessarily an issue. As a resource, some consider water to be as
valuable as oil, needed by nearly every industry, and needed nearly
every day.
[11]
Water shortages can completely cripple an industry just as it can
cripple a population, and affect developed countries just as they affect
countries with less-developed water infrastructure. Water-based
industries are more visible in water disputes, but commerce at all
levels can be damaged by a lack of water.
International commercial disputes between nations can be addressed through the
World Trade Organization,
which has water-specific groups like a Fisheries Center that provide a
unified judicial protocol for commercial conflict resolution. Still,
water conflict occurring domestically, as well as conflict that may not
be entirely commercial in nature may not be suitable for arbitration by
the WTO.
Fishing
Historically, fisheries have been the main sources of question, as
nations expanded and claimed portions of oceans and seas as territory
for ‘domestic’ commercial fishing. Certain lucrative areas, such as the
Bering Sea, have a history of dispute; in 1886 Great Britain and the United States clashed over sealing fisheries,
[12]
and today Russia surrounds a pocket of international water known as the
Bering Sea Donut Hole. Conflict over fishing routes and access to the
hole was resolved in 1995 by a convention referred to colloquially as
the Donut Hole Agreement.
[13]
Pollution
Corporate interest often crosses opposing commercial interest, as
well as environmental concerns, leading to another form of dispute. In
the 1960s,
Lake Erie, and to a lesser extent, the other
Great Lakes
were polluted to the point of massive fish death. Local communities
suffered greatly from dismal water quality until the United States
Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972.
[14]
Water pollution
poses a significant health risk, especially in heavily industrialized,
heavily populated areas like China. In response to a worsening situation
in which entire cities lacked safe drinking water, China passed a
revised Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law.
[15]
The possibility of polluted water making it way across international
boundaries, as well as unrecognized water pollution within a poorer
country brings up questions of human rights, allowing for international
input on water pollution. There is no single framework for dealing with
pollution disputes local to a nation.
Classifications
According to Aaron Wolf, et all.
[16] there were 1831 water conflicts over transboundary basins from 1950–2000. They categorizied these events as following:
- No water-related events on the extremes
- Most interactions are cooperative
- Most interactions are mild
- Water acts as irritant
- Water acts as unifier
- Nations cooperate over a wide variety of issues
- Nations conflict over quantity and infrastructure
Response
International organizations play the largest role in mediating water
disputes and improving water management. From scientific efforts to
quantify water pollution, to the World Trade Organization’s efforts to
resolve trade disputes between nations, the varying types of water
disputes can be addressed through current framework. Yet water conflicts
that go unresolved become more dangerous as water becomes more scarce
and global population increases.
[17]
United Nations
The UN International Hydrological Program aims to help improve
understanding of water resources and foster effective water management.
[18]
But by far the most active UN program in water dispute resolution is
its Potential Conflict to Co-operation Potential mission, which is in
its third phase, training water professionals in the Middle East and
organizing educational efforts elsewhere.
[19]
Its target groups include diplomats, lawmakers, civil society, and
students of water studies; by expanding knowledge of water disputes, it
hopes to encourage co-operation between nations in dealing with
conflicts.
UNESCO only just recently published a complete map of transboundary aquifers.
[20]
Academic work focusing on water disputes has yet to yield a consistent
method for mediating international disputes, let alone local ones. But
UNESCO faces optimistic prospects for the future as water conflicts
become more public, and as increasing severity sobers obstinate
interests.
World Trade Organization
The
World Trade Organization
can arbitrate water disputes presented by its member states when the
disputes are commercial in nature. The WTO has certain groups, such as
its Fisheries Center, that work to monitor and rule on relevant cases,
although it is by no means the authority on conflict over water
resources.
Because water is so central to agricultural trade, water disputes may be subtly implicated in WTO cases in the form of
virtual water,
[21]
water used in the production of goods and services but not directly
traded between countries. Countries with greater access to water
supplies may fare better from an economic standpoint than those facing
crisis, which creates the potential for conflict. Outraged by
agriculture subsidies that displace domestic produce, countries facing
water shortages bring their case to the WTO.
The WTO plays more of a role in agriculturally based disputes that
are relevant to conflict over specific sources of water. Still, it
provides an important framework that shapes the way water will play into
future economic disputes. One school of thought entertains the notion
of war over water, the ultimate progression of an unresolved water
dispute—scarce water resources combined with the pressure of
exponentially increasing population may outstrip the ability of the WTO
to maintain civility in trade issues
[22]
Notable conflicts
Water conflicts can occur on the intrastate and interstate levels.
Interstate conflicts occur between two or more neighboring countries
that share a transboundary water source, such as a river, sea, or
groundwater basin. For example, the
Middle East has only 1% of the world's freshwater shared among 5% of the world's population.
[23]
Intrastate conflicts take place between two of more parties in the same
country. An example would be the conflicts between farmers and industry
(agricultural vs industrial use of water).
According to
UNESCO, the current interstate conflicts occur mainly in the Middle East (disputes stemming from the
Euphrates and
Tigris Rivers among Turkey, Syria, and Iraq; and the
Jordan River conflict among Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestine territories), in Africa (
Nile River-related conflicts among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan),
[2] as well as in
Central Asia (the
Aral Sea conflict among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan). At a local level, a remarkable example is the
2000 Cochabamba protests, depicted in the 2010 Spanish film
Even the Rain by
Icíar Bollaín.
Some analysts estimate that due to an increase in human consumption
of water resources, water conflicts will become increasingly common in
the near future.
[24][25]
During World War One, the
Battle of Beersheba (1917) was fought with the expressed intention of securing water resources in Palestine.
